Food Shows on TV

I watch cooking and food shows on TV a lot. In fact, this hobby started in the early 1980's (did I just dated myself?). I watched reruns of The French Chef with Julia Child, and I was also a big fan of the Frugal Gourmet on PBS. In fact, Jeff Smith of the Frugal Gourmet was the first person that I was aware of who opened my eyes to how food relates to the various cultures, nationalities, and social practices around the world. It was at that point that I slowly developed my appreciation for various ethnic cuisines around the world.

When the Food Network came on many years ago, I thought I died and gone to heaven. Imagine a non-stop food shows on TV all day long! For a foodie, this was as good as it got. In the very beginning, there were a lot of interesting shows on that network, especially on "how to" type shows that we are familiar with. One of the early shows on the network was called something like "Dining Around" of "TV Diners", where hosts Alan Richmond and Nina Griscom reviewed 3 restaurants around the country each week. Think of it as a more subdued and upscale "Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives". It was one of my favorite shows, because for the first time, I get to see different food at different places all over the country.

Unfortunately, for me, the Food Network has gone down hill, and by a lot! It seems that the focus now is on "game show", where food is incidental, but the style is more important than the substance. Just like MTV, it has lost its way and seems to have ignored the very idea of culinary arts and skills. It is also worth noting that, from all the news reports that I have read, my top 2 food shows on TV that I list below were all REJECTED when they were first pitched to the Food Network. Considering that since then, these two shows have received awards and acclaims, those folks at the Food Network must be very proud of their decisions.

So here is my list of my most favorite food shows on TV:

1. Bizarre Food with Andrew Zimmern
I've loved this show since its inception many, many years ago, and I continue to love this show even today. This is not, despite the title, a show to gross you out. But rather, if you pay attention, it is about how people make do with what they have and what they can get. This show not only presents you with food that people from various parts of the world eat, but also tells you quite a bit on how they live. This connection between the food and people's lives is what makes this show very special and very uncommon as far as TV food show is concerned.

2. A Chef's Life
I love this show so much that I bought all of their shows (all 4 seasons up to this point) from iTunes and loaded them on my iPad. It is what I watch when I'm on the plane, and I've watched each show multiple times. It follows the chef's life of Vivian Howard in opening her fine-dining restaurant Chef and the Farmer in rural Kinston, North Carolina. Strangely enough, the type of food that she presents on the show, which is southern, pork-heavy cuisine, is not my favorite. Yet, I've grown to appreciate the food as part of a historical and social context of people living in that region of the US. Again, the context of the food in relation to the people, and why they eat what they eat, provide an intriguing story to the food. I was so enamored with this show that on our last trip to North Carolina about 2 years ago, we made a trip to Kinston just to dine at Chef and the Farmer. It did not disappoint, and we are hoping to make our return trip to it this coming April.

3. America's Test Kitchen and Cook's Country
These two shows, shown on the US Public Broadcasting Stations, are the mothers of all cooking instruction shows. These shows present explicit instructions on how a home cook can make many types of dishes. Most of the recipes and dishes work quite well. Where I have issues with them is when they try to do ethnic cuisines. I know that they have to do this based on what a typical home cook in the US can do and can get access to. But because of that, certain ethnic cuisines, such as Chinese dishes, have been "Americanized" to suit not only the taste, but also the ingredients available. This is really a minor issue, because for other types of dishes, especially when they get to baked goods, their instructions are spot-on.

4. I'll Have What Phil's Having
This was a limited series of 6 episodes, also broadcasted on PBS. As with A Chef's Life, I also have the entire series on my iPad. The show follows Phil Rosenthal, the creator of the TV sitcom "Everybody Loves Raymond", as he went and ate through one location after another. The show is funny, touching, irreverent, hysterical, educational, and more importantly, relevant! I have written to the show and pleaded with them to get Phil to do more shows.

That's it. It is interesting to note that Vivan Howard, Andrew Zimmern, and Phil Rosenthal all have won James Beard awards for their shows. It is also interesting to note that the 2016 James Beard award in the Broadcast Media section had no shows that aired on the Food Network. Need I say more?

Zz.